Welcome back. First and foremost, I’d like to thank you all and announce that we have hit 50 subscribers. It is a small feat but nevertheless, very important to me. When I started 1 AM Media, I never expected to make it this far. I assumed like many creative endeavors, it would fizzle out into obscurity. So, sincerely, thank you all again.
Also brief housekeeping, not all of the posts this month will be horror themed. I plan to have another playlist post sometime this week. Anyways, let’s get into the second installment of our Halloween themed Spooky Season post.
Graphic Content (Not Really) and Potential Spoilers Ahead
Today’s installment of Spooky Season is also a franchise like Scream. The franchise I am referring to is “V/H/S”. “V/H/S” is a collection of independent short segments held together by a narrative segment to give it some semblance of structure to support the anthology. It was met with generally poor reviews from both critics and audiences. Each segment has a different director or group of directors and focuses on a different story. There are four feature length films in the franchise; “V/H/S”, “V/H/S 2” “V/H/S: Viral” and “V/H/S: 94”.
The first time I ever heard of “V/H/S”, it was pitched to me by a close family friend. He described it as very scary. He actually said “really fucked up”. As a teenager, when someone pitches a movie as “really fucked up”, your interest is naturally piqued. It has the same energy as being in a situation where you’re not supposed to laugh, so naturally you cannot stop. I think that also relates to the draw of horror movies. We watch movies because they take us to a place so vastly different from our lives. We’re not serial killers, or ghost hunters, or ordained exorcists, but we like to be watch these movies because they simulate the terror of these situations. It’s like an amusement park ride. Anyways, I digress. When “V/H/S” was pitched to me as “fucked up”, I knew I had to watch it.
Going into the film, I did not really know what to expect. The film opens with the narrative story, which is shot in such a fashion that makes “The Blair Witch Project” look like Stanley Kubrick was behind the camera. It is borderline disorienting. I was young and sharp so I adjusted to the camerawork. The narrative that holds the segments together follows a group of small time crooks that are hired to retrieve a VHS tape with some importance the filmmakers never really allude to (maybe blackmail, I don’t remember). Small time crooks is a generous title. These guys are real dirtbags, and very stupid. They make their money mainly from a forced “Girls Gone Wild-esque” scheme, which the film opens with.
As the scumbags arrive to the house, they notice it is full of VHS tapes. They begin watching the tapes and realize that the tapes may be darker than they imagined. This brings us into the main draw of the “V/H/S” series, the segments. The segments include a group of guys (also real scumbags) trying to get lucky at bars that turns out very badly. The next is about a couple traveling cross country on their honeymoon where they may not be alone (Fun Fact: This segment was directed by Ti West, who went on to write and direct the successful A24 Horror trilogy of “X”, “Pearl”, and soon to be released “Maxxxine”).
The segment that follows is about a group of twenty-somethings that take a trip to the dingiest, saddest lake you’ve ever seen (The movie had a very low budget). They are then stalked and eventually killed by a mysterious phantom killer that does not show up on camera which turns out to be a pretty cheesy gimmick in my opinion. The next segment is filmed over FaceTime, and it follows a girl talking to her long distance boyfriend as her house is seemingly haunted. A crazy twist follows and this brings us to our next and final segment. The final segment follow a group of guys going to a Halloween party in a mysterious empty house. In between each segment we return to the losers looking for the VHS tape as they are being murdered by a mysterious entity, but at this point in the narrative, you really don’t care.
I will not be going in depth on the plot of each subsequent “V/H/S” movie because that would take me forever. Also why would you care? I did, however, want to give you a sense of how the films are structured. The formula does not really change much throughout the franchise. “V/H/S: Viral” attempts to mix it up but it comes off as kinda weird.
At this point in the blog you’re probably thinking “Does he even like these movies? He’s been roasting them the whole time.” The short answer is yes, and luckily for you this is my Substack and I can give you the long answer as well.
I do like these movies for a solid amount of reasons. For one, they are genuinely shocking and oftentimes scary. The filmmakers shoot for scary over plot in most cases. There is the occasional gem in the bunch (these become more scarce in the later installments). Another reason I like these movies, that came to me as I got older, is it seems to me like the filmmakers had a lot of creative freedom to tell an original story. A lot of them succeed. The ones that are good are really good. There is also an element of nostalgia, which can explain why I like them. I watched the first “V/H/S” in a very formative period of my horror movie journey.
Before I wrap up, I would like to mention which segments/stories I actually like. In “V/H/S”, I personally liked Ti West’s Honeymoon segment. It ends with a very graphic scene but there is something eerie about the mostly uneventful story.
I also really like the final segment about the Halloween party. The guys in the segment are the least hatable people in the movie, and it was fairly believable with a good premise.
In “V/H/S 2” my favorite segment follows a “slumber party” at a GORGEOUS lake house (budget must have went up) that gets interrupted by aliens.
The rest of the segments in the other movies are either decent or meh, but worth watching. Like I mentioned before, “V/H/S: Viral” was definitely the most ambitious in their frame narrative, but to me it kind of fell flat. “V/H/S: 94”(2021) had so much potential to be amazing. The setups for the segments were all so good, especially the last one, but they all ended up being monster movies. If there was more variety in the outcomes of the segments, it all would have paid off. If you watch the first two installments of the “V/H/S” series and enjoy them, you will feel obligated to watch the final two.
To wrap this thing up once and for all, the “V/H/S” series is an interesting take on independent horror filmmaking. They are super gory, super shocking, super vulgar, but there is something charming about them. Enjoying these movies makes you feel like you’re rooting for the little guy. They are certainly not for everyone, but if you’re really into horror, I think you’ll like them.
For “V/H/S” I have to add a new horror ranking.
The official ranking for the “V/H/S” franchise is: SCARY AND MID (I say mid because the use of several directors leads to a variety in storytelling quality. Some are great, some are good, some are okay, and some are not good).
Thank you for reading. I’ll speak to you soon with something less spoooooky.
-CJ
The bat lady from VHS lives rent free in my head
Hi Conor: Have you spent any time with 1970s Italian horror, aka giallo? This summer I bought a DVD of Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood. Which I’d seen, I just wanted to own it. The reason will be evident when I write about Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic. But no spoilers!